Kids Central

The Florida Senate has now put together several proposals aimed at overhauling Florida’s child welfare agency. The goal is to address the spate of child deaths taking place under the watch of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

The bill makes several changes to DCF. They include creating a criminal offense for abandoning a child, seeking to improve child abuse investigators’ qualifications and making sure most new employees hired after January 1st of next year hold a degree in social work.

As Florida lawmakers get closer to overhauling the state’s child welfare agency in an effort to avoid more child deaths, some worry proposed changes could harm the Florida Department of Children and Families. Whether new child protective investigators should be required to have a social work degree became a matter of contention during a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Hollywood Democratic Senator Eleanor Sobel says she believes the proposal her committee will soon put forth will be what she calls “landmark legislation” that will protect the state’s most vulnerable youth:

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